As It Lies, Always

Lorne Rubenstein

Lorne Rubenstein

Before I get into my main point here, let me say this. Please listen. Please. I am not an aging curmudgeon. Well, aging, yes, but who isn’t? I am not a rigid traditionalist lacking a sense that the game evolves. Okay, that’s out of the way.

But I do claim, and I don’t see how this cannot be true, that golf is a sport played outdoors and that it is therefore subject to — and will always subject to — the vagaries of weather. There are times when competitive rounds at the highest levels must be suspended or even cancelled (rain that makes a course unplayable, high winds that make a course unplayable because balls move on greens, and, of course, lightning, which makes it dangerous for players, officials, and spectators).

Okay, then. Golf is played outdoors. Golfers are sometimes tested in ways that appear and even are unfair. But you have heard and you know that golf cannot always be a fair game. The only way to make conditions uniform for every player and at all times is to compete in a domed golf course.

Would we want that? Of course not. You know the saying: nae rain, nae wind, nae golf. Now I like a pleasant day under sunny skies with only a zephyr of a breeze as much as any golfer. But if the conditions are harsh and I must play, well, so be it. Handling oneself under conditions that can be brutal is part of the game. Right?

This brings us to this week’s U.S. Women’s Open at the Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club in Birmingham, Ala. John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s senior managing director, said Wednesday that the course had been inundated with nearly five inches of rain since Sunday at 5 p.m. That included 1.5 inches of rain Tuesday night. The grounds are sopping, although the sand-based greens started to dry out with some sunshine Wednesday afternoon. Still, the course was soaked as play began this morning.

Golf balls have been picking up mud, the scourge and bane of all golfers. It’s difficult to know what will happen to a golf ball when a splotch or blob of mud has stuck to it after it plunges and belly flops into gooey ground. Please consult this informative article by T.J. Tomasi on the subject of how mud affects the flight of a golf ball. Did you know that a golf ball curves in the opposite direction to the side on which the mud has settled?

Anyway, tour pros understandably, if lamentably, want, crave and covet ideal conditions, the better for them to control the flight of the golf ball and also how it rolls on greens, which themselves they want uniform from one through 18. Mud balls in particular can make the best golfers look like fools. It’s not surprising that the competitors at Shoal Creek were asking whether the USGA will allow them to lift, clean and place their golf balls should they pick up mud.

The USGA has conducted national championships for more than a century and has never allowed lift, clean and place. Most of the women at Shoal Creek don’t expect the USGA to alter its stance this week, although Bodenhamer was clear and consistent in saying the USGA will monitor conditions closely and up to the minute. But at no point have Bodenhamer or any of his associates with the USGA come close to saying they would do anything but play the ball as it lies — that is, no lift, clean and place. This is after all a national championship.

Lexi Thompson, third in the Rolex World Rankings, did say that it will be “a little unfair” if the USGA chooses not to play the ball “up,” that is, if it doesn’t allow lift, clean and place. But she wasn’t complaining and observed every golfer will have to play it down — as it lies. But she was acknowledging that some shots will pick up mud and others won’t. That’s the way it goes.

Rub of the green is an important part of the game. Mudball golf makes the mental side of a competition that much more important. The complaining golfer won’t stand a chance. The golfer who can cope with the exigencies of a game played over varying ground outdoors at least won’t come unglued by the breaks of the game.

A tournament golfer could do worse than to meditate on the notion that there really isn’t such a thing as a bad break in golf. Stuff happens. Don’t take it personally. Yes, this is very difficult, almost impossible. But come on. We’re talking in this case about a U.S. Open.

Allow me to quote Robert Browning, a scholar of the game whose 1955 book A History of Golf is a beacon of erudition and common sense. He writes in the chapter on the evolution of the rules, in a section on local rules, about lifting from unplayable lies, as follows.

“Unfortunately, all these provisions for lifting from unplayable lies have tended to inspire members of the more unsophisticated golfing communities with the idea that on the fairway they are entitled to a fair smack at the ball, and so any tendency towards soft and soggy lies is made the excuse for the application of ‘winter rules’ to allow of the ball being teed up through the green.”

Precisely. The golfer who whimpers about mud on his ball because of a sloppy slog of a course is a softie.

One more turn for the USGA’s Bodenhamer, in answer to being asked how the USGA weighs what is best, given “muck and misfortune” when playing the ball down, of conditions that aren’t “true” when allowing ball in hand.

He said, “But you know, not every U.S. Open has been played on pristine, perfect fairways or perfectly dry conditions or in bright sunshine. We play an outdoor game. Unless we’re ready to put a dome over our golf courses, we always will. That’s part of the charm and the greatness of our game is that there is randomness to our game and I think that’s what makes it the greatest game, in my opinion, and there is some of that, at times a little bit more challenging than otherwise because of what Mother Nature brings. We’re use every tool in our tool kit to address it.”

If the great bluesman Muddy Waters were a golfer, what would he have said? Sorry, I had to get that in here. But I’m trying not to muddy the waters, and I hope the USGA compels the best women golfers to play the ball down.

Let the championship be an ultimate test, that is, of physical, emotional, and mental skills.